Marxism

Why do you think no nation has ever implemented Marxism as I think you and I would largely agree it to be?

Maybe my question is better phrased as follows:1) Are there any examples of sizeable populations having successfully implemented Marxism?
2) If not why not?By sizeable population I mean one of national rather than family or tribal scales. I would agree that they are less different than people think. Additionally the notion of a supreme leader of the Stalin type (and associated state hierachy) would seem totally at odds with the very idea of communism in the sense of more bottom up communal decision making and self governance of the people for the people by the people (or something like that).Edited by Straggler, : No reason given.

I would suggest that history shows us that would-be authoritarian dictatorships either play the tribal nationalist card or the "power to the people" card to dupe the populace into letting them take control. The end results bear little sembleance to Marxism as I understand it to be conceptually.Now the question as to whether a large (i.e. nation sized) population could implement a genuinely Marxist system is I think an interesting one. What I do know is that it is not in the interests of those who do hold the power and wealth under any present (or past) system to let that happen so I think it desperately unlikely to be genuinely atempted anytime soon.As for the human nature argument - People do operate under the influence of greed. But they equally operate under the influence of a strong community spirit where there exists a community that one genuinely associates oneself with. People regularly give up their time and money to help others. Just saying people are greedy ignores the other half of the equation. It is how effectively you can harness and organise that community spirit without it seeming to the individual that their resources are being taken from them to be redistributed to a faceless machine with no obvious benefit to anyone that can be identified as one of their own community. And I suspect that this probelm increases as the size of the population of the community increases.But maybe in this communication and global age that population size issue is not as insurmountable as we might first think. Power to the people.................

I would be interested in what you think of my response to Hyro above on my own thoughts on this. I think unions can be sizeable populations. But that they are limited in other ways. They tend to group like-minded people together on a few obvious issues. I suspect that the unity found in such circumstances would rapidly disintegrate if the remit of that grouping was necessarily wider and where there was more conflict of group and individual interests.All members of a union will be united in gaining better general pay and conditions for all members of the union from the employers. But how long with that cohesion last if the question of distributing limited resources fairly to all members based on contribution to the community comes up? Who decides the criteria of fairness and contribution? It is a different ball game running a society by distributing fixed limited resources to campaigning for more resources for all members from an outisde source.

Why? Why in a system that is called communism must there be an elite who make all the decisions for the community regardless of the wishes of the community? Whether this is true or false it is indisputably in the interests of those who currently hold the majority of the wealth and power in the world (or indeed any given nation) to foster that belief. How indoctrinated are we by those who currently hold power and influence to believe that any other system whereby their power and influence is removed must be idiotic and unachievable? Who tells us this is the case? Why might they be saying that? Which is arguably (some might say blatantly factually) what we have now. Indeed. But altruism to who? Those with whom we have a shared social connection. Those who could be us but for different circumstance. I think the question is how far that social connection can be realistically establshed in a large population. Except that (arguably) the wealth of some comes at the expense of the poverty of many others. Those in the first/Western world would not enjoy the degree of material wealth that we do but for the low wages, poor conditions and exploitation of materials and natural resources of those in the more poverty stricken areas of the world. Capitalism does breed innovation and wealth. But it doesn't do this without cost. That cost should not be ignored. This was part of Marx's thesis as I understand it. Communism as it has been practised has been little more than an excuse for dictatorial rule in the false name of the people. Whether or not Marxism could be successfully applied to a large population remains a question that I don't think those with power, wealth and influence will ever let us truly discover. Because it might just work and for them that would be truly catastrophic.

There seems to be a general consensus formed by a largely right wing press (at least in Britain and I presume things are not dissimilar in the US) that current levels of taxation are at historically and dangerously high levels. That we are in the grips of a socialist plot to redistribute wealth from the deserving to the undeserving on ill conceived, impractical and purely ideological grounds. That unless we slavishly free ourselves to the dictates of "the market" that we are destined to doom and destruction by "big government". But the stats as I understand them don't back this up.The current financial problems are surely the demonstrable result of unregulated free-marketeering on the part of purely greed driven banks. The result of the wealthiest acting on the interests of the wealthiest at the expense of everyone else. In the current economic climate how can right wingers espouse the benefits of pure free-marketeering whilst decrying government intervention to force banks to act in the interests of wider society?

And you could add Hitler to that list too. Not because he was communist in name but because (as I said earlier)

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Straggler writes: I would suggest that history shows us that would-be authoritarian dictatorships either play the tribal nationalist card or the "power to the people" card to dupe the populace into letting them take control. The end results bear little sembleance to Marxism as I understand it to be conceptually.

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So the question remains: Why must Marxism result in dictatorial rule by an elite? Regardless of those that have historically cited themselves as "Marxist" for largely PR purposes. If you define Marxism as the dictatorial rule of a social elite then it is a circular argument to argue that this is why it is necessarily the dictatorial rule of a social elite. The question remains as to why this must necessarily be the case. No? But it doesn't mean there has to be a dictatorship with an immovable and unaccountable ruling elite who cream off the best for themselves at the expense of all others. Does it? If so why? I think there can be a consensus of some sort (even in a large population) of what constitutes a contribution to society and the relative basis upon which that might be rewarded. Our current system lets the market dictate that almost entirely. And we end up in the situation where a sports star is essentially deemed as millions of times more worthwhile than a nurse. Is this necessarily right? Is it socially unavoidable? Maybe. Maybe not. I am asking the question. Nor do I. Who does? The question is - What is success? And on what basis should it be rewarded? Indeed. As you will also find community spirit and the inherent empathy with others who (but for the grace of God) could be yourself in different less fortunate circumstances. As long as there is a genuine collective franchisement in society. My main concern remains the size of the population in which it is possible for this collective identity to manifest itself to the degree required by Marxism in practise. Does it benefit everyone? The self interest of the Western world does not benefit those working in third world slum conditions for poverty wages to provide us with cheap goods and services so that we can maintain that differential. A differential I might add that is purely based on the luck of birth and which has almost nothing to do with aptitude, ability or willingness to work hard. Capitalism is great at providing a large portion of the wealthy with what they desire. But it indisputably has a massive cost in terms of requiring a majority labour market to do this in relative poverty and is also indisputably very wasteful in terms of finite natural resources. If you have to keep consuming you have to keep creating. Regardles of actual need. We operate the world on the basis of manufactured need in the first world largely supplied by impoverished labour in the third world. No truly Marxist system would rely on a dictatorial elite as far as I understand the term "communism" in that conceptual context. That every "communist" system has been a trenchant and authoritarian dictatorship implies to me that "power to the people" has been used to dupe the populace into accepting such extreme governance rather than as any sort of manifestation of anything actually envisaged by Marx. All EvC members are entitled to their view. But some members are more entitled than others. Edited by Straggler, : Spelling and wording

No. But nor should it let portions of it's population starve or suffer malnutrition for reasons beyond their control on the basis that it is not the problem of those overeating themselves to death.

An easy mistake to make in practical terms because (as I have said previously here)

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Straggler writes: I would suggest that history shows us that would-be authoritarian dictatorships either play the tribal nationalist card or the "power to the people" card to dupe the populace into letting them take control. The end results bear little sembleance to Marxism as I understand it to be conceptually.

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Hyro's conceptual conflation kinda proves my point............Edited by Straggler, : Change attribute of quote from Faith to Hyro.

Who would benefit and who would lose out?Ask yourself that and surely the answer is obvious. No?

Oh come now Faith. There is an evidenced and obvious political inclination. If Jesus were alive today what do you think his political inclinations would be?

Whoops. It was Hyro. Not you. I have edited message and re-attributed quote. My bad. Forgive me.

Hyro can I ask - Do you believe that the aim of Marxism is to make everyone equal regardless of what they actually do in society? Administrating a government is not the same as ruling in ones own interests at the expense of everyone elses.I ask again - Why must Marxism result in an authoritarian dictatorship in your view? You seem to just assume this as a given. But I am not sure on what basis. Simply citing a list of dictators who have falsely played the "power to the people" card in order to gain power is not sufficient. Families are arguably Marxist in setup. Tribes of people have been historically successfully Marxist in essence. Groups where everyone has a stake in the same things and where everyone identifies that it is collectively beneficial to protect each other from misfortune and share resources on the basis that you and yours benefit from that collective when most needed (i.e. times of illness, job loss, home loss etc. etc.) are essentially Marxist. Local communities can act very collectively when the long term benefits of doing so are obvious to everyone including those contributing the most in that community. My concern is how large that grouping can be whilst retaining that collective spirit required to make this work. Are you saying it is impossible to recognise some achievements as contributing more to society than others and thus being more deserving of reward on that basis? Is it not even conceivably possible to agree that some jobs are more socialy worthwhile than others? Which Marxists? Or are you going to give us a list of dictators again? In a capitalist society success is basically measured in terms of material wealth. How that wealth is achieved is largely immaterial. Inherited wealth, successfully playing the capitalist system without actually doing anything socially productive (e.g. currency speculation or whatever) leads to just as much (if not considerably more) wealth than actually doing things that benefit society in any way. No. Who says that they should? Is that really what you think Marxism means? In a Marxist system as I understand it ones rewards would be much more related to ones role and contribution to society. A highly specialised doctor would have entailed a great deal of investment in terms of training and a great deal of hard work and talent on the part of the individual. The benefit to society of that would be high and thus the rewards for such an individual would be relatively high.It is not about making everyone equal. It is about redefining what constitutes success in terms of what benefits society as a whole. That is my understanding in a nutshell anyway. Aside from your rather niche Bahamas example are you saying that the countries of Africa, Asia and South America who provide us in the West with cheap goods are lacking natural resources, natural talents or the willingness to work? Because turkeys don't vote for Christmas. 10% of the world population own 85% of the worlds wealth. 1% of the population owns 40% of the worlds wealth. The people in a position to implement such a system (i.e. those with wealth and power) are those who will lose most from doing so. They would be better served by convincing everyone that the whole idea is utter nonsense regardless of whether it has any merit or not.Edited by Straggler, : Spelling

Are you honestly saying that in general the rich are not also the most fiscally right wing? You see no correlation between wealth and political inclination whatsoever? Would Jesus promote free-market notions that personal greed is natural and that it should be allowed to prevail unhindered as the ultimate driving force behind economics? Or do you think he would be inclined to promote a form of everyone contributing to assist those who are jobless, homeless, ill and unable to afford adequate healthcare etc. etc. etc.?Which side of the debate do you think Jesus would land on here based on his teachings?

A dictatorship is a dictatorship is a dictatorship.I think right wing philosophies mistakenly equate financial freedom with actual freedom. The two are not the same. It is quite possible to have the right to do whatever you want with your money but if you have no money, are uneducated, live in squalid housing and are working like mad just to survive then you lack any realistic opportunity to change that situation then this much vaunted fiscal "freedom" counts for nothing at all.Such a person would arguably be significantly freer in a society where decent education and work opportunities are much less dependent on ones background and parental ability to pay and are available to all who are willing to work to reach their potential. Even if the cost of that is paying more tax when you do use your potential to achieve more so that others can enjoy the same oportunities that you have.It is about equalising opportunity. Not attempting to make everyone equal.